Questions/Answers

Fujairah Police General Head Quarters (FPGHQ) has established a comprehensive control and corporate governance process to ensure full control over all functions in order to detect corruption cases, bribery, exploiting job for own benefit, behavioral and procedural violations. In addition to ensure reduction of complaints (urgent, routine and critical) and encourage community to report legal violations, complaints and suggestions easily and confidently and that they get all the information and regulation updates. FPGHQ applied processes to ensure anti-discrimination and hatred from both employees and public. The problem or challenge that led to the launch of the initiative (Corporate Governance System) is the increase of complaints percentage. The study showed that the reasons for the increase are gaps in the functions that can lead to corruption, bribery, influence peddling, insecurity and community lack of confidence in police. The study recommendation was to develop a comprehensive system for control and governance of police functions. The initiative aims to achieve the following objectives which is linked completely with 2030 agenda goal SDG 16 (16.1, 16.2, 16.3, 16.4, 16.5, 16.6, 16.10, 16b): - End corruptions and bribery cases at FPGHQ. - Encourage community to communicate with FPGHQ. - Develop policies that are considered a safety valve to prevent corruption and bribery cases such as policy of accepting gifts. - Ensure community access to information. - Facilitate laws and amendments delivery to public and society and ensure they are aware of it. - Encourage FPGHQ to report law violations by public and society. - Develop clear processes and procedures following governance rule to guarantee effective application of FPGHQ functions. - Establishing transparent, clear and fair internal control processes. - Encourage external monitoring of FPGHQ functions.

Corporate Governance System initiative is directly and clearly related to the award category as the objectives of the initiative and the rationale for its formation is to have a corruption and bribery free institution; Transparent and accountable at all functional levels without exception through complaints from all community levels and without barriers. Thus, the initiative linked to the same objectives of developing transparent and accountable public institutions so that the institution is transparent and accountable aiming to empower people through participation and increase their access to information and thus to monitor and report mistakes as an institution or officials.

Corporate Governance System Initiative aims at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals where it was able to achieve SDG 16 (levels: 16.1, 16.2, 16.3, 16.4, 16.5, 16.6, 16.10, 16b) through corporate governance over performance and activation of institutional work and principle of accountability in business. In addition to achieving 100% for feeling of secure at night and 100% feeling in general secure as per Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority. The actions taken by FPGHQ led to absence of crimes that threaten the basis of peaceful societies, including human trafficking crimes and any cases of human rights violations. Fujairah Police cooperated with civil society to participate in permanent solutions to reduce violence and violent crimes through the community police system. The initiative also contributed to development of process that achieved sustainable goals through auditing, assessment and monitoring done like: clear awareness work plans as well as activate the practices of the right to hold officials accountable. All regulations also confirmed that there is no discrimination in services provided or access to information according to origin, race, religion or gender, where Fujairah Police General Head Quarters achieved 97% for customer’s satisfaction on provided services.

1- Social Sustainability: Development of community communication (channels- policies -councils) and field visits. Including unit for social support to study societal phenomena and deal with social situations whether violence against women/children and treating them as victims, supporting them psychologically/socially and reintegrate them into society. 2. Economic Sustainability: the absence of murder and organized crime cases and effectiveness of control mechanism on corruption and bribery cases contributes to building trust between society and economic sector in the UAE police and encourages them to invest. 3 - Environmental sustainability: The existence of the system may contribute to the absence of environmental violations.

Prior to the initiative Fujairah Police General Head Quarters relied on the traditional administration and the implementation of regulations and laws that control the work, but there was no guarantee on the efficiency nor the effectiveness of that administration, in addition to that in 2016 complaints from public on FPGHQ and her employees reached 40% more than the preceding year. FPGHQ was not having an actual control over the processes and procedures which led to develop an initiative to establish comprehensive and effective process for control in the following areas: organizational management, human resources management, finance management, information management, project management and management of resources and property. The initiative also achieved the most important principles of governance which is separation of tasks and responsibilities by defining the value chain and the general processes framework which includes main and support process and the appropriate organizational structure to implement the strategies and supporting policies in FPGHQ. Also implemented all rules, regulations, Ministry of Interior requirements, Cabinet requirements and external monitoring parties’ requirements and followed it up effectively through reviewing regular reports with top management to take the appropriate decision.

We implemented policies and legislation that create a supportive environment for gender equality principle implementation and monitoring any violations that affect the implementation. Female have obtained all their financial rights equally with male, where currently positions managed by women reached 10%, and women have been appointed in all police functions like patrols, research and investigation. FPGHQ have achieved the best officer in field under Minister of Interior Award as the first female officer to win this award and in 2019 another female officer achieved Influential 40 under 40 awards at International Association of Chiefs of Police in United States.

Independent section was established in which experts were appointed in three areas (administrative, technical, financial) and it was agreed with Fujairah local government that dependence, appointments, salaries and bonuses of these employees are with the local government to ensure impartiality and transparency. The section has an approved announced internal audit plan in addition to unannounced confidential audit plan on all police departments and employees. The audit is carried monthly in addition to monitoring and follow-up of internal and external complaints and any reports received from external bodies. We take actions towards the incident party with accordance to laws and regulations, where the initiative targets the following groups: 1- Organizational Departments: monitor violations resulting from application of procedures, where violations percentage decreased by 98% during 2019. 2- Employees: Follow-up all violations that can be committed by employees, for example, policeman style in providing service or administrative corruption or bribery, where it led to absence of corruption, complaints on policeman style decreased by 95% for 2019. 3- Public and Community: Encourage communication with them and submission of any observations, complaints or violations in order to encourage public to communicate and ensure public access to information and inform them of laws and amendments.

The project scope has been defined to include all FPGHQ organizational units to achieve the planned objectives: implementation of Corporate Governance System. The team used PMP methodology to implement the initiative as follows: A. Development: in early 2017 FPGHQ started developing a traditional inspection initiative that was dependent on a team from all departments their main role was to monitor corruption cases, bribery, law violations. In late 2017 the general commander of FPGHQ direct strategic department to search for best practices in corporate governance because the existing process it was manual and not transparent and accountable enough. The department suggested to implement BS 13500:2013 (British Standard for Corporate Governance). During the implementation and to guarantee transparency, accountability, responsibility and participation of relevant stakeholders FPGHQ formed an internal control unit related to local government. In late 2018 the top management steering committee decided to develop an interactive smart electronic system for governance that increases and facilitates participation of public in monitoring and reporting of wrongdoings of FPGHQ and her employees. B. Monitoring and Evaluation: there are eight parties performing monitoring and evaluation to guarantee the efficiency and effectiveness of the initiative. - External Auditor (Lloyd’s Register) which is appointed from Fujairah Local Government. - External Financial Auditor (Deloitte) which is appointed from Fujairah Local Government. - State Audit Institution, United Arab Emirates - Fujairah Government local Financial Control office - Ministry of Interior Inspector office who’s conducting regular visits yearly. - Ministry of Interior General Directorate of Preventive Security who’s conducting regular visits yearly. - Internal audit which is conducted by internal control team. - Top Management Steering Committee meetings which is held quarterly. Where the internal control unit receives all reports and take corrective and preventive actions in order to maintain continuous development.

Obstacles, such as acceptance of the control system, where awareness workshops were carried to demonstrate importance of the system. Six parties were identified/affected by the project for example project team, suppliers, partners, internal/external control parties, departments, customers and employees where we developed a matrix shows how they impact and how they have to deal with the impacts that will occur during the project (decision support - transparency and governance in performance management - decrease of mistakes and complaints, which saves financial waste in correction and consumption costs). This matrix has contributed to overcoming all obstacles and facilitating the initiative.

Innovation lie in the following: 1. Smart Electronic System (SES): An interactive smart electronic system has been developed internally by FPGHQ to guarantee transparency where the inspector shall use an electronic system during his field visit and he can review all regulations and procedures. The inspector can’t amend the findings in the system after completing his visit to maintain impartiality. 2. Work Forms: we designed all operational work forms that the inspectors use internally with no help of third party and we are in process of obtaining intellectual property from Ministry of Economy.

The initiative was inspired from the UAE Government Excellence System fourth generation in particular governance criteria in addition to British standard BS 13500:2013, where Fujairah Police General Head Quarters achieved the certificate as first police entity in the world. Thus, FPGHQ have taken the lead in adopting these practices and methods that govern the institutional work and ensure cooperation between the FPGHQ and civil society to find durable solutions and increase feeling secure and the application of the right to question officials.

According to the initiative achievements, impacts and evaluation results we are confident that the initiative will be adopted by other institutions. In addition to our experience of similar adopted projects by other institutions, for example: ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, ISO 45001:2018 and First Responder, etc… The internal control unit head participated in the 8th Jordan Quality Conference as a speaker about FPGHQ practice in corporate governance at Police Institutions where the attended Jordanian institutions showed their interest in the initiative and how it was implemented in Police. In addition to that the local governmental entities at Fujairah showed their interest in the initiative, where Fujairah Finance Department and Fujairah Hospital signed a strategic memorandum with FPGHQ to assist them in implementing the initiative. All of that is due the innovation and uniqueness of the procedures, forms and the electronic system that facilitates the implementation of corporate governance. In 2019 Ministry of Interior/Department of Finance has achieved BS 135000:2013 (Corporate Governance).

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Resources are managed throughout PMP where each task of the plan we did specify the needed human and financial resources needed. There are two types of costs for the initiative: 1-Process Development Cost (PDC) 2-Initiative Sustainability Cost (ISC) paid by Local Government Where total amount of the initiative from initiation phase till closure (Process Cost) is 16,600$ and the sustainability Cost is 261,400$ We required to coordinate with Fujairah Local Government to hire three experts to run the processes of internal control unit in the following fields: 1-Technical 2-Administrative 3-Financial In addition to that, we required eleven employees to form the corporate governance system.

Control and governance of processes and procedures have a positive impact in stopping the waste of resources, because time wasted by the employees is a waste money. Therefore, if we applied control over all FPGHQ functions it will lead to increase in productivity and lower cost. In addition to financial control guarantees the financial sustainability through regulations and polices founded and updated for that issue.

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There are seven types of evaluation to guarantee the efficiency and effectiveness of the initiative. -External Auditor (Lloyd’s Register) according to BS13500:2013. -External Financial Auditor (Deloitte) according to accounting rules -State Audit Institution, United Arab Emirates according to financial laws -Fujairah Government local Financial Control office according to local financial laws -Ministry of Interior Inspector office according to MOI laws and regulations -Ministry of Interior General Directorate of Preventive Security according to MOI laws and regulations -Internal audit according to BS13500:2013 and all laws and regulations

The measured indicators are: - The extent of commitment to the implementation of the initiative's work plan within the approved budget. - Results associated with risks and challenges and their effects. - Satisfaction of stakeholders before and after the initiative. - indicator of decrease of observations, violations and breaches that were monitored after implementing the initiative compared to those monitored before the implementation. - Feeling secure indicator. - confidence in police work indicator. - Efficiency of resources mobilized for the initiative. We applied 7 tools, PMP, PRINCE2, process engineering, SWOT analysis, focus sessions, brainstorming.

According to Lloyd’s register audit report the initiative showed effective implementation and adequate resources utilization and sustainability through the following: 1- Effective close of nonconformity 2- Corporate Governance processes documentation 3- Effective archiving system for the laws and regulations of the institution 4- Adequate resource allocation through initiative implementation and roles and responsibilities assignment 5- Initiating new unit and teams to sustain the initiative 6- Develop and update work related policies and rules 7- Disclose all policies and rules to employees and public 8- Conducted awareness sessions to public and employees about rules, regulations and policies. The most important challenge faced us is how to promotes transparency and accountability in public institutions and empower people, where we overcome it through awareness sessions and easily available 24/7 online complaints system and landline. Where the impact of the initiative increased people access to information and promote participation, including monitoring and reporting of wrongdoings of public officials and entities.

The internal control unit is responsible for preparation of yearly audit plan on all departments at Fujairah Police General Head Quarters, the audit plan concentrates on all inspection types (financial, technical and managerial) at least one visit per year for each department. Fujairah police top management steering committee approves the plan and the internal control team head disclose it to all concerned departments. The inspectors perform audit visits according to the plan and submit their findings to internal control unit head where she will work with concerned department and internal control team to close the findings. The head of Internal control unit meets the top management steering committee quarterly to present audit findings and take actions needed. The head of internal control unit asks for urgent meeting with top management steering committee when there is a finding fall under one of the following: bribery, corruption cases, exploiting job for own benefit.

We defined our stakeholders as follows: - Fujairah ruler - ministry of interior - partners - customers - community - employees - suppliers Stakeholders participated in each aspect of the initiative from designing and implementation till evaluation. The top management steering committee took the approval of Fujairah ruler to have internal control unit with employees related to local government and not to Fujairah police general head quarter in order to guarantee transparency of the initiative. We conducted surveys and meeting with stakeholders to define their needs with regards to governance system. Fujairah police general headquarters issues a governance performance report yearly including statistics and fact data about detected cases.

The lessons learned from the Corporate Governance Initiative at Fujairah Police Headquarters are summarized through the following points: - Admit the problem helps improving rules, regulations, policies and initiative procedures. - Cooperation between the FPGHQ and community to find sustainable solutions to decrease violence or human rights violations and insecurity. - Partnership between police and community promotes transparency and accountability in public and increase people’s access to information and reporting of wrongdoings of FPGHQ and entities. - Use of new tools like: focus sessions, brainstorming and the use of ideas development tools guide. - Technology is today’s trend where FPGHQ developed a smart intelligent corporate governance system to increase and promote corporate governance.